The Russian attack on Ukraine on the 24th of February altered the shape of this spring for many of us. We followed the news, fundraised, and joined protests against the Russian aggression. I also found myself in the somewhat odd position of public expert on current events, which as a Victorianist and Edwardianist I had not really expected to ever be.

I have argued that drawing on and feeding fan dynamics has allowed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy to mobilise NATO countries despite the lack of an official place in the alliance; it has helped ensure an early and continuing open-source intelligence (osint) production; and it has probably helped produce a greater willingness to ensure quick funding and a good reception of Ukrainian refugees across much of Europe

I wanted to leave a record here, mostly for myself, about what I said and where.

It started with a talk at work on the subject already on the 9th of March, and then again on the 14th, whereupon I was told/bribed/convinced to turn it into an op-ed for Morgenbladet. There was some delay in the pipeline here, but it was published by the 24th:

This was followed by a very early morning appearance at NRK, on tv and radio, on the 31st:

Whereupon I had a lengthy conversation with a journalist from Dagbladet, who produced the following on the 6th of April:

I do not think it my most original points were the more captivating, and the experience of facing the media (qua mediator) was illuminating (I will never again judge someone for not being sufficiently nuanced or original in the news) -- not least the revelation that you are lucky to get 5 minutes of people's time in which to make what is in reality a complicated point. For those of us used to a couple of hours at our disposal this is a rough transition.

I may write up a blog on the essence of my argument, but that will have to be a matter for another day. Turns out, if you take a month off for outreach (which takes rather longer than it ought to -- I do not envy my colleagues who had several daily appearances for a while) you become rather inundated playing catch-up for a while after.